A MODEL PRAYER-MEETING.
It was a cheerful chapel above ground, filled with seats, wide enough apart to kneel down between them, if one wanted to do so, well warmed and well ventilated.
At the time fixed for the meeting, first of all came Brother Punctuality. His watch and actions are always regulated to the minute by the town clock. Once he and the minister came together. They waited one minute for others who came not, and then each prayed, talked, and sang. They spent fifteen minutes thus, and then left.
On their way home they met the rest coming, who said, "Why, are we not to have a meeting?" "Oh, we have had one," was the reply. That cured all, except the most incorrigible, of their delay. Some people are chronically tardy. You can never change them. They are always too late for work, too late for dinner, too late for church. What a mercy if they are not at last among those who come when the door is shut! They disturb the devotions of others. Not so Brother Punctuality; only he has one troublesome fault. When the hour is done he opens that inevitable hunting-watch of his, and snaps it to with such a nervous jerk that it says very plainly to all, "Now, shut up and go home." This is bad enough in ordinary and dull times, but when hearts are warm, and prayers are strong, and the current of love flows fully, let there then at least be a little more latitude.
Congenial with this brother is Brother Promptitude. When the leader opens the meeting, he is always ready to rise. He shudders at these pauses. They are to him as ice-cakes clogging the current of love, hindering the wheels of prayer. Yet he would not rush things. I have known him to count seven, the mystic number of the Scripture, and then, if no one rose to speak or pray, he did. He is thus a minute man, ready for action in a minute, and hating to lose the minutes. Slower natures than his complain that he does not give them time to think. No matter; they may learn at last not to be so slow.
In the other seat sits Brother Brevity. He has something to say, and having said it he sits down. When some overstocked divine or some thin-laid layman drags wearily along with a chain of dull platitudes, he is very twitchy, wondering why people will waste so much good breath and use so many poor words in saying nothing.
Brother Pointedness deeply sympathises with him. He wants to see people take good aim at the mark, and hit it—not try to see how near they can come and not do it.
Brother Round-the-Circle greatly distresses him, who, if he has a fact, an incident, or an illustration, has so many minor details to dwell upon that he smothers the infant-truth under his mass of old clothes.—Selected.
[Perhaps this curious sketch may yield useful hints to some who read it.—Ed.]